This is So Fabulous! Food Storage

So Food Storage....boring huh? Or more like OVERWHELMING!! Where do you start? How do you know how much you have? How much you need? How to Rotate? When does everything go bad? Wheat and Beans for a year??? Wow!! So many questions and so hard to get started!

I've been feeling pretty strongly lately that we need to get this going and how important it is. I've felt that it's also my responsibility as the main food preparer in our home.

Colt's Aunt Jill is an inspiration with food storage - she helps the family get excited about it and do it. She shared with me this recently and I am hooked!

Check out this blog!

http://homeproductionandstorage.blogspot.com/2009/04/part-1.html

Wendy DeWitt has a church calling to get people excited and doing their food storage. She has designed a system that will work for our family and helps me not feel so overwhelmed. It's all here in her blog! How to put it together, how to eat yummy food, how to rotate it, everything!

There are YouTube videos of her seminars on there too with her going through all the written things. The very top left link has her system to be able to print with recipes.

Her system summarized:

Why/When would we need food storage? Worse case senario - some kind of quarantine to homes with no electricity or water. Now hopefully we will have electricity and water, and it would be a huge blessing if we did, but if not.....With the swine/avian flu, people are quarantined to homes. If a nasty strain breaks out, there would be lots of people quarantined, and to keep your family safe, you wouldn't want to go in public. There is a possiblity that some kind of swine/avian flu may be coming and may be horrendous. This is not to feel scared or panicked, just to be prepared if it comes. Her basis was that we may be hungry/starving and watching our children starve - at that point we would do ANYTHING to keep our children alive: Steal, lie, even kill. Get your food storage so you don't go to such desperate measures and put your spiritual life on the line. Even Lehi "Murmured against God" when the bow was broken and there wasn't any food. We will not be able to withstand such pressures when we are starving.

Hopefully we never have to use it - but in case, it is there. Kind of like life insurance.

*How much food do you need?

You will make one week menu - Write down 7 Breakfasts and 7 dinners. For your years food storage you'll have each of these meals 52 times. Times every ingredient in the meal by 52 and you have your years supply for that meal. Now you know how much salt and rice you'll need because it's in the recipes. She also has what you would need to do one loaf of bread a day.

She cans meat! Yes, this was all very new to me, but last night I did my first batch of pressure-canned beef. Today I am trying chicken and hamburger. How to do it is all in her blog.

Now to rotate - I don't want all that money that I spent on the food to be wasted - I don't want everything to go bad just sitting there. You write down everything you need for your year (based off your recipes) then you have a list of what you need and a column of what you have, so how much you'll have to buy. You also write down the expiration date next to everything and then you only need to look at that paper once a year (New Years Day) to see if anything is going to expire in that year. You pull it out of food storage, and work it into your pantry because it is stuff that your family eats anyway (I would always wonder how am I ever going to go through that many pounds of wheat when we don't eat it regularly). Most things have at least a 3 year shelf life and some have many more years of life left.

Back to the meat I'm bottling - They say it is so tender and moist that it will be no problem rotating because it will be so convenient and yummy to use. I bought my meat yesterday on a great deal $1.69 a lb. I usually buy meat at a good deal and then freeze it, but then you have to thaw it before you cook it.....this way you just pop the can open and enjoy cooked meat in your dish. I'm all for it!

Recipe for Instant Cats

Last Sunday while we were outside enjoying the evening, we noticed a cat that River started packing around. She told me a couple of times that it was hungry and could she feed it some dinner. I told her no for about an hour. This cat was cute, behaved really well with River and was obviously hungry.

So how much harm could one left over piece of chicken do?

The next morning we had 7 cats on our doorstep: Yes, she has 6 kittens.

Well, I didn't feed them for the next several days hoping that they would go back where they came from. She got skinnier and skinnier and hungrier and hungrier. I figured she probably was hanging around for more hand-outs and missed the meals where she came from. So we finally broke down and fed them.

Yikes, so now we have 7 cats - I don't feel like they were getting enough food before they moved to our house.

Disclaimer: I don't like cats. So this is interesting, I didn't want pets (at this point of our life with babies and small kids) and now all of a sudden we find ourselves with 7. When we do get pets, I'd like to be able to pick them out which ones we want. And, this neighborhood has TONS of cats, so it's just a matter of time before the roamers find we have food at our house. Oh My!

So here's my recipe for cats:

One Piece of leftover chicken.

Beef, Pork, or Fish may substituted.

And there you have it: Instant Cats!

Enjoy!

Sweet Baby and Adorable girl!

Wow, June flew by and it's already July! Before we know it our girls will be all grown up!
Here are a couple of highlights of our month in review:

These are the most amazing photos! River's friend from Nursery Ali had a birthday party at the park. We got there after Silver had shots at her Doctor visit, so was having a rough morning. Michelle Federkiel took these pictures of Silver. How Amazing!! I love the colors! True Talent.
Tonight a cat visited us and River fed her new hungry friend dinner. Ah-lobber is her name :)

River LOVES computer games. For a 3 year old she is really good with the mouse and clicking to get around the different sites and games.

I had surgery last week and everything went well. The doctor says that my left ovary is looking just fine. The right ovary is looking pretty much gone - it was the one with both cysts, so we're not counting on that one. I've been so grateful through the whole process - I saw Dr Lunt, he was a fabulous doctor that answered ALL of my questions, was very respectful, made me feel comfortable and has called me at home for follow up and always asks my opinion and how I feel about things. I couldn't have asked for anything better. I feel very grateful and blessed.

My Dad sent me these beautiful "wishing a speedy recovery" lillies. I love lillies and orange, so this was tailored just for me! They bloomed their hearts out.

River enjoyed in her lady-bug preschool painting with glue and then sprinkling glitter on it.

We bid farewell to Celery and Apple after much fun with our chicks!

Colt has hosted a couple of BBQs as the insurance office and co-sponsered them with the Chiropractor in town. Speaking of chiropractic - the wierd thing about the anesthesia is that it settled in my right shoulder and neck - Very Painful! I also was clenching my jaw (which already has issues) as I was coming out of anesthesia. Our neighbor does chiropractics and with a couple of adjustments, the pain was Gone! It was also really helpful while I was pregnant, as my back would get pinched.

Silver and River are the Best of Friends! Silver is getting around now, turning and getting up on her knees. Going from sitting to all fours. She loves to be active and explore her world! She was pretty much exclusively nursed up until my surgery earlier this week, and now she doesn't hold still long enough to nurse very long. She is REALLY into food, has 3 big portions of fruit/veggies/cereal a day.

River really enjoyed her Birthday party. We had quite a few neighbor/nursery friends/cousins over for her party. We enjoyed playing with the parachute, playing some of River's favorite games: Ring around the Rosy, silly songs sung together, and enjoying cake with whipped cream! River still talks about her party and what she wants to do for her next one!

River LOVES to play with blocks and make things. We make animals quite often, with deer being her favorite - the bigger the better on the horns! LOTS of cheaters :)

River has enjoyed going to the Kanab pool. Last year she only dipped her toes in the water. This year she didn't want to get her suit wet on the first outing to the pool. She walked in the water daintily until a little boy ran past splashing her suit. She looked utterly disgusted with him and complained that her suit got wet but that she wasn't going to get it more wet. A while later another excited kid ran past and she toppled over completely into the water. Well, once she was completely wet she decided it wasn't so bad and has been in to her neck every since! She loves splashing and having a good time in the water.

River has also been really obedient lately. Right when the whistles blow to come out of the water, she pops out! Time outs work really well for her. For behavior that needs to be worked on, (being whiny, continuing to do things after being told no, etc) she has really been well behaved.
It was a fun 4th of July - we went to the parade in the morning and then the fireworks last night. River at first wanted to go home with the bangs being so loud, but after Colt covered her ears, she enjoyed them. I covered Silver's ears and she was completely still with big wide eyes the entire time enjoying the show!

Enjoying our blessings and freedom!

If ye are prepared

If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear. I have been worried about taking care of our girls if we get a bad pandemic and what to do with little kids.
I asked the doctor what things to have on hand for kids (you know how kids usually get really sick Saturday night after the pharmacy closes).
This is my doctors list of things to have on hand:
*Tylenol or something for pain and fever
*Cough Suppresant
*Decongestant
*Dermabond (like superglue - for bad cuts to glue skin back together)
*Mirilax (a Laxative)
*Promethegan (Suppository to stop vomiting if they are throwing up and can't stop)
Talking to other moms about their health-kits, other things to include:
*Tea-Tree Oil ( I guess it's from the Malaluca tree? for ear aches
*acidophilus (for yeast infections in kids)
It's amazing how much calm and peace has come after getting a years supply together. Just knowing that we have done what the prophets have asked us to do has brought security in unsure times.
Knowing that we can take care of our little ones is a great comfort.

My Beautiful Violin

I am tired as I write this. I've been extremely exhausted pretty much every day for the past while. Mid-April I was in a lot of pain and we found another ovarian cyst. 10 years ago I had a 12 cm cyst surgically removed. This one is around 6 cm - so about 1/2 the size. It is still there and the same size which now makes it persistent and abnormal, and by the OBGYN's opinion needs to come out.

I have surgery scheduled for Monday morning in St George. I've always been pretty sensitive when it comes to fertility issues. I would really like to have a large family with lots of kids. I really, really, really enjoy being a mom. Our girls bring me the greatest joy :)

I look at our girls as the biggest blessing! I love modern medicine too. If I had been born at another time in history, I don't know if I would have been able to have kids with the cysts - rupturing or twisting is a possibility when they get so big.

It's hard for me to write about this. The hardest thing would be to not be able to have kids. Next hardest would be to only be able to have 1. We have 2 sweet, darling girls, so I feel I have much to be thankful for. If it was up to me, I would choose to have 6+ kids. I feel selfish as I write this as I know family and friends that aren't able to have kids. Children are a huge part of the gospel, and we desire to raise them in righteousness and love - with a huge amount of FUN too!

Hopefully removing this cyst also helps me with my energy.

I have ALWAYS wanted to play the violin. Growing up, I started the piano at age 7. I really enjoy being able to play the piano, and even though I wanted to play the violin, I never told anyone because if I had to choose, I would choose the piano as my instrument of choice.

I finally decided to take lessons and make my dreams a reality :)

I think we need to take some time to enjoy the things that really make us smile and live.

I feel alive when I play the violin, and I don't feel tired at all when I play. I can only do it when the girls are taking naps (which seldom happens that they are both down for naps at the same time) or after they are asleep for the night. There are so many other things that cry out to be done in that quiet time with 2 hands - but I've really had such a fun time playing and pretending I'm a violinist :)

I wanted to find a good teacher - and I ran into Linda Deluca's husband at a yard sale at their home. She was inside the house teaching a violin lesson and I mentioned to him that I've always wanted to learn and was she taking on new students? After telling people I would start with her as my teacher, I have heard some amazing things about her. She has a Masters from Julliard in violin and she used to play for the Dixie Chicks. She has a fun personality too.

The person you are today and the person you are in 5 years will differ by the people you associate with and the books that you read. I'm glad I made this connection.

Here's to Enjoying the Journey and Finding the Courage to Follow Your Dreams!

Lots of Smiles

WOW! Life has been BuSy! I thought being a stay-at-home mom would be easy!! and that things would slow down a bit! I'm so glad that I'm at home full-time now. I don't have any idea how ladies work and have kids. We've had so much fun the last month and have been super-busy! I just got back from girls camp. I took Silver Dawn with me to camp - which was a huge adventure. Having a baby at girls camp for 4 days completely wore me out. You know the scripture that says to give your whole heart, might, mind and strength to the Lord? I gave all my strength to the Lord last week, and I haven't recovered yet :) I was so blessed to have such a great baby at camp. Silver was amazingly calm and quiet most all of camp (except for at nights). A huge blessing.

Overall, I'm really happy with how camp turned out. It wasn't perfect and there are a lot of things that I learned from this camp. We did our best with the situation and had a lot of fun along the way. The girls really came together in a spirit of unity and love. They were planning pranks on each other - especially the new girls coming in. We decided no pranks in our camp this year. It is a church camp and not a summer camp. We explained to them the reasons why no pranks would be allowed: The spirit thrives on unity, not contention. Ours is a gospel of love and service, not fear and exclusion. The girls understood this and worked together to bless other camps in our stake with surprise messages like "You are bee-utiful" and heart attacks. We learned the power of a thank-you when someone does something thoughtful for you and of service.

River and Silver have been growing up so fast lately. Here are some cute things that they've been doing lately:

Silver LOVES to laugh!!! She laughs all the time and has such a great attitude most all the time.

River loves Silver and they get a long so great!

Here is River eating her first lemon:

I love her facial expressions.

River also got a chick from Paca for her 3rd birthday. She named him Celery and we got to bring home his brother to keep Celery company. The 2nd chick is named Popcorn.

River loves animals and takes out her chicks at least a dozen times a day. River is also getting very brave these days: She rode on Paca's wheelbarrow with hay in it and held onto the hay straps. We also go swimming all the time at the Kanab pool. Before this year River would only dip her toes in the water. The first time we went swimming this year She told me she only wanted to get the water up to her knees but didn't want to get her suit wet. A boy ran passed and spashed water on her. She was pretty disgusted. He later ran by and splashed her again, she got scared and fell into the water. After that, since she was all wet already she really enjoyed the water. Now when we go she is usually up to her neck in the water all the time.

I've felt bad lately that I'm so busy that I can't do some things. Like my brother Mike wanted me to read over his Business school application and I just could not get to it to read it. There is a problem when you're so busy that important things just can't get done. I'd like to change so that I can smell the roses and be available to my family when they need me.

May Quote Board

I have a bad habit of saying "Oh my Gosh" or "Dang it". I didn't realize how much I did it until River started picking it up. So she was going around saying "Dang it" - I sat down with her and told her that that wasn't good to say. "Let's think of something else to say instead of dang it. I suggested "Oh no" Colt's suggestion was "Rats!" River's idea was "Gosh! That's a good deal huh mom? Gosh instead of Dang it!"

River uses logic and reason to try to get what she wants. We were over at Aunt Jane and Uncle Carl's home and River was throwing balls down the stairs. She wanted Aunt Jane to go pick them up for her. Jane said that River's legs were younger and stronger to go down the stairs. River says "Let me see your muscles.....see, you're muscles are strong....You could do it!"

River says this all the time (in a high soft voice) "Oooohhhh, that's cutes!"

Tomi Finicum is an 8 year old cousin that lives next door to us. After thinking awhile over things, she comes to amazing conclusions. Here is a recent smattering:Tomi: How old is your house? Me: It was built in 1998, so it's 10 years old. Tomi: Woah, So, the 1990's were a LOOONNGGG time ago!River found some of Tomi's Haloween candy. Tomi said that she could have all of it. I asked Tomi if she liked candy. "Uhhh Yeah!" she replied "Every kid LOVES candy.....I just don't want to get fat!"

"There's more to life than market share" -Karin

River says this ALL the time: "I could do this....I could do this........I'm a big girl"

River usually says "I have an idea" or "That was a good idea" This morning she said...."That was an credible idea" like incredible :)

"Ooohhh. That was a GOOD choice!" -River

"I'm SOOO glad her [Silver] could come to our family!" -River

Mom: River, please come help mommy wash the dishes.River: Hhhmmmm, that's a posibility.

River and I were outside. When she asked me what I was doing I told her I was pulling the weeds. "Oooohhhh, You're a weed girl and I'm a Shmellow girl! Welllll.....I'm really a chip girl." After a pause "Actually, I'm a chocolate chip girl"

Half way through checking Silver's temperature rectally River walked into the room. She promptly dropped her drawers and announced "My Turn!"

"I'm a Shmellow Girl!" -River River LOVES marshmallows

River is afraid of cars. This is nice for me while in a parking lot. We live down a winding dirt road. On the way back to our home after getting the mail, River was running along when a car turned the corner. She ran quickly over to me and said "Whew, that was CLOSE! We almost got Dead!"